"Shooting Stars" last night

I was out with a friend enjoying the stars last night and saw a really bright and what I thought, an unusual shooting star (or what looked like one)
in the south sky.

I thought it was unusual because it was really bright, it moved really fast! and it didn't arc across the sky-- it seemed to arc almost straight down
towards the horizon instead. My friend was looking in the other direction and missed it, when I told him about it we saw another one! Almost in the
exact location with the same arc following the first one about 5-8 seconds later.

Wondering if that is unusual to see two following each other along the same path, and being very bright and very fast moving. Anyone else happen to
see the same thing?

What you're describing is not unusual at all. Meteors move very fast and usually only last a fraction of a second. Some of them can be very
bright, and the ones I've seen appear to travel in a straight line. I suppose it is uncommon to see two take the exact same path in a 5 second time
period, but as byrd pointed out, it's not unheard of, especially if they came from the same collection of space dust.

What you described sounds like typical meteors to me. Still, even a typical one make my heart beat a bit faster when I see it!

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